Showing results by narrator "Stewart Crank" in All Categories

Officers from the RSPCA investigate reports of animal cruelty and neglect on a farm, only to discover a 5-year-old boy curled up asleep in a dog bed, amidst filth and squalor. He has severe physical and cognitive impairments, and no one outside the family seems to know of the existence of little Jacob. When he arrives in the Allen household, a terrified Louise wonders how on earth she will cope looking after a child with his level of physical and emotional damage. With the support of veteran social worker, Mary, the fight begins to get Jacob the support he needs.

When you’re the editor of a successful investigative journal, you don’t dash around Scotland chasing after loch monsters. But Gill McArdle didn’t believe in unicorns either, and speaking honestly, he was fortunate to walk away from that one. He’s a scientist, and not one of the wild-eyed optimists spending their days, scanning the loch for a creature. And here’s his problem. With every passing hour, evidence mounts that something is stirring.

Arrochar Adair has loved her brother's ex-bodyguard and best friend, Mac Galbraith, for years. Once upon a time, she was too young for him, but now that she's a mature woman in her thirties, Arro can see no issue with their difference in age. Yet something deeper is keeping them apart. Mac Galbraith remembers clearly the night Arro became everything to him, no longer just his best friend and boss's younger sister. Having made many mistakes over the years, there is one Mac is determined not to make: to believe that he is worthy of Arrochar Adair.

Darrow would have lived in peace, but his enemies brought him war. The Gold overlords demanded his obedience, hanged his wife, and enslaved his people. But Darrow is determined to fight back. Risking everything to transform himself and breach Gold society, Darrow has battled to survive the cutthroat rivalries that breed Society’s mightiest warriors, climbed the ranks, and waited patiently to unleash the revolution that will tear the hierarchy apart from within. Finally, the time has come.

I may have reached my breaking point. As if trying to graduate from a school for supernaturals isn’t stressful enough, my relationship status has gone from complicated to a straight-up dumpster fire. Oh, and the Bloodletter has decided to drop a bomb of epic proportions on us all... Then again, when has anything at Katmere Academy not been intense? And the hits just keep coming. Jaxon’s turned colder than an Alaskan winter. The Circle is splintered over my upcoming coronation. As if things couldn’t get worse, now there’s an arrest warrant for Hudson’s and my supposed crimes.

Braddick is back. Following a storm, a body is washed up on a beach, intricately wrapped in wire mesh. DS Marcus Braddick is struck by the similarities to a triple murder case from seven years before - a case that eluded his predecessor, Alec Ramsay. Across the city, a teacher is accused online by a predator hunting group. As his life unravels, a killer stalks the hunters. Braddick and Ramsay have to work out how the two worlds are entwined and discover who are the innocent and who are the guilty before it’s too late....

Once upon a time, Monroe Sinclair was Brodan Adair's best friend, but now he's a stranger and one of Hollywood's leading men . . . It took Monroe Sinclair eighteen years to return home to Ardnoch after a fateful night that devastated her friendship with Brodan Adair. Only a daughter's guilt could lure her back to the Highlands and the assumption that Brodan Adair rarely ever sets foot in their hometown. She can handle seeing the rest of the Adairs so long as she can avoid her ex-best friend and the only man she's ever loved.

In It for the Long Run is ultrarunner Damian Hall’s story of running a first marathon aged 36, dressed as a toilet, and representing Great Britain four years later. His midlife-crisis running problem escalated to 100-mile ultramarathons and record-breaking bimbles, culminating in his 261-mile Pennine Way run in July 2020.

It should be the best time of half-vampire Cat Crawfield's life. With her lover Bones at her side, she's successfully protected mortals from the rogue undead. But though Cat's worn disguise after disguise to keep her true identity a secret from the brazen bloodsuckers, her cover's finally been blown, placing her in terrible danger. As if that wasn't enough, a woman from Bones's past is determined to bury him once and for all. Caught in the crosshairs of a vengeful vamp, yet determined to help Bones stop a lethal magic from being unleashed, Cat's about to learn the true meaning of bad blood.

When her gangster boyfriend, Tim, is sent down, Susie Jones’ life is thrown into turmoil. Left to run his criminal empire, Susie finds solace in new acquaintances made in Strangeways Visitors’ Centre...with unforeseen consequences.

"Bring back the lynx? Over my dead body!" A mutter passed through the crowd of environmental protestors, and Rory stepped forward. "Your hunting has destroyed our hills and left them treeless wastes, devoid of wildlife. It’s time that changed." Lord Purdey’s lip curled in a sneer. "Listen, you lentil-eating cat lover, Scotland is owned by me and men like me. If we want to kill anything that moves and bulldoze your beloved hills flat, we will."

Now Then is a biographical mosaic of Yorkshire. Rick Broadbent, an award-wining author and exiled Yorkshireman, goes in search of the soul of England's biggest county and produces an all-encompassing portrait of a place that has been victimised and stereotyped since the days of Williams the Conqueror. Incorporating social history, memoir, reportage and author interviews, Now Then paints a picture of what it means to be from Yorkshire - both now and back then.

Following the coronation of Charles III, Scotland’s most revered artefact, ‘The Stone of Destiny’ arrives at its long-term home in Perth Museum. Desperate to rebuild his shattered credibility, Gill is working hard on several stories along the Firth of Forth. But he’s presented with a problem when the discovery of an ancient inscription in a ruined church throws question marks against the authenticity of The Stone. On the trail of an age-old story, Gill finds himself opposed by someone prepared to kill to prevent the truth from being revealed.

Everything feels off—especially me. I’ve returned to Katmere Academy, but I’m haunted by fragments of days I have no recollection of living and struggling to understand who, or what, I really am. Just when I start to feel safe again, Hudson is back with a vengeance. He insists there are secrets I don’t know about, threatening to drive a wedge between Jaxon and me forever. But far worse enemies are at our doorstep.

Magazine editor and part-time archaeologist, Gill McArdle is getting it together. Or at least, he thinks he is, until the death of a friend throws his life into turmoil. He’s on Orkney, researching an elaborate stone carrying an ancient religious motif. But he’s perplexed as the carving long predates any previous incidence of the symbol’s first use. Either someone is tampering with Orcadian archaeology, or Gill is facing a puzzle that can’t be resolved.

Just when things couldn't get much worse, they suddenly do. With DS Zander Ellery in jail, his partner DC Isabel York fights to clear his name. Not an easy task when she is suspended from duty and the evidence against him is compelling. Finally, pieces begin to fall into place, but to catch the Prayer Slayer once and for all, both officers must walk down a dark path where their very souls are at risk of being taken.

Darrow would have lived in peace, but his enemies brought him war. The Gold overlords demanded his obedience, hanged his wife, and enslaved his people. But Darrow is determined to fight back. Risking everything to transform himself and breach Gold society, Darrow has battled to survive the cutthroat rivalries that breed Society’s mightiest warriors, climbed the ranks, and waited patiently to unleash the revolution that will tear the hierarchy apart from within. Finally, the time has come.

Half-vampire Cat Crawfield is now Special Agent Cat Crawfield, working for the government to rid the world of the rogue undead. She's still using everything Bones, her sexy and dangerous ex, taught her, but when Cat is targeted for assassination, the only man who can help her is the vampire she left behind. Being around him awakens all her emotions, from the adrenaline kick of slaying vamps side by side to the reckless passion that consumed them. But a price on her head—wanted: dead or half-alive—means her survival depends on teaming up with Bones.

Dina Demille doesn’t run your typical bed and breakfast. Her inn defies laws of physics, her fluffy dog is secretly a monster, and the only paying guest is a former Galactic tyrant with a price on her head. But the inn needs guests to thrive, and guests have been scarce, so when an Arbitrator shows up at Dina's door and asks her to host a peace summit between three warring species, she jumps on the chance.

DI George Wiley is calling in a favor. As head of a new unit tackling cold and unusual cases, he presents Gill McArdle with a bag of human teeth. His evaluation – a serial killer has been operating undetected in Scotland for decades. With no leads in the case, Wiley wants Gill to leverage his contacts. But Gill McArdle feels under no obligation as he has a puzzle of his own to solve. Roadworks in the Scottish Highlands have uncovered an old battlefield site, and now the race is on to complete an archaeological dig before the site is buried under tarmac.